THOUSANDS of patients failed to turn up for their doctors' appointments during the past year.

Figures out yesterday show that more than 250,000 GP appointments were missed in the Merseyside and Cheshire NHS region.

This is an improvement on the previous year's figure of 290,000, but GPs say the problem is still unacceptable.

They stopped short of supporting moves to charge patients, but warned missed appointments lead to longer waiting times.

Dr James Graham, who has run a surgery in Tuebrook for 15 years and is a member of the Liverpool Medical Committee, said: "I'd support greater education. I think charging would put doctors in an adversarial role and be an administrative nightmare."

Meanwhile, there were more than 75,000 missed appointments with practice nurses across Merseyside and Cheshire.

However, this was a significant fall as missed practice nurse appointments for the previous year stood at 284,741.

The survey was conducted by Developing Patient Partnerships and was published to mark the start of the annual Keep it or Cancel It campaign.

Across the UK, patients missed almost nine million doctor appointments.